Holocaust Survivors Bring Insights To Students In Boca

When death camp survivors spoke at Spanish River High School on Thursday, the teen-agers hung onto every word.

"With the way things are in the world today, with all the racist groups, do you think it could happen again?" asked Chris Kopchak, 18.

"We are living in a very difficult time with things like the devastation in Oklahoma, neo-Nazi groups starting up and militias," said Ruth Desperak, an Auschwitz survivor. "We must speak up, do not hide anything. Do not be afraid. Even if you feel hatred inside you, get it out in the open where it can be discussed."

Most of the dozen survivors who gathered at Spanish River High in Boca Raton on Thursday were about the same age as the students when they were pulled from their homes and herded into cattle cars.

"I was your age when I was taken to Auschwitz concentration camp," Desperak said. "Like most of the young people, I was not interested in politics. We were only interested in ourselves."

Jumping from the cattle cars amid barking dogs and Nazis' shouting, Desperak saw her father for the last time as they were split into groups. Some were sent to the left, some the right.

"I'm sitting here today because they sent me to the right," said Desperak, of Delray Beach.

The survivors, who visited classes individually, were part of the school's effort to recognize Holocaust Remembrance Day, which coincides with the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps.

"It was on this exact day, April 27, 1945, that I was liberated," said Morris Halle of Delray Beach. "Even if by talking to these kids we only reach a few, still we accomplish something. As survivors, we are the leaders of future generations. We have to preach love instead of hate, tolerance instead of prejudice."

For many years, Holocaust survivors had not been as open about their experiences.

"They didn't want to burden their children," said Adam Newman of Boca Raton who escaped from the labor camps when he was a young boy. "When Schindler's List came along, it helped open a lot of people up."

Beverley Caplan, 18, whose grandparents were survivors, said, "What happened was instilled in me since I was 3. It scared me so much when I was small, but now I'm grateful they never hid it from me. The minute we forget, it will happen again."

Several of the students who helped coordinate the day's activities were part of last year's "March of the Living" in Poland. Along with thousands of other teens, they walked from the Auschwitz concentration camp to the Birkenau gas chambers.

"The survivors see us as witnesses in a way, even though we're not. But we've seen the gas chambers; we've seen the 60 tons of human ashes," said Alison Oakes, 18.

Oakes looks around her and sees the obvious. "The survivors are in their 60s, 70s, 80s. They will be gone some day. Our listening and witnessing makes them feel better. They know people will not forget."

Newman, who escaped through barbed wire with scraps of rug strapped to his back so he wouldn't tear his flesh and clothes, said, "This is the fulfillment of my duty. If we do not tell, who will?'' Newman has had a book published in Hebrew titled Struggle for Life. "And I tell my children, `This book, this is my gravestone.'''